Cara’s legacy, guest blog by southdowner
… I fell in love with bull terriers in an instant, boom, just like that. A coup de foudre as the French, who wrote the language of romance, would say. Even now, that instant has a crystal clarity that never dims with time. I was sitting on the top deck of a Manchester bus, high above the city on one of its steepest hills. Walking stoically up the hill, master alongside, nautical roll very pronounced and piratical patch clearly visible was this character. Too large a presence to be just ”a dog”, it rolled up that hill as if it had just stepped ashore after conquering new worlds across far oceans, and hadn’t yet ceased to feel the swell beneath its pads.
So I bought a bull terrier puppy of my own, and she was incredibly hard work. Not in the first three months, which went well; my puppy slept in my bed, played when she wanted to, always had company because I had gone back to my parents to live after finishing university. My parents became her slaves, and she had a surfeit of attention whenever she wished. My mother got into the habit of opening my bedroom door early, big white torpedo nose would appear, and the two of them would trot downstairs together.
“Quickly! Quick, help!” I struggled up out of a well of dreams to hear loud shouts from the kitchen downstairs.
“OK, OK I’m coming!” I called, but the shouts continued. I got downstairs and opened the kitchen door to be confronted by both parents, and at their feet a smiling bull terrier, who turned to look at me as I entered.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. The dog seemed quite happy, but my parents were standing extremely close together, abnormally so in a family who were definitely not touchy feely.
It transpired that whenever either of my parents had touched a cupboard door, Cara had curled a lip at them silently but (in their eyes) no less menacingly for that.
“Why didn’t you just open the door regardless?” I asked, “or walk out of the room?”
“She wouldn’t let us” they wailed, and the longer I looked at them, the more they resembled a brace of penned sheep. They stood, while I went to every single cupboard door, and all 3 doors in/out of the kitchen. Looking squarely at Cara, I opened every one of those doors; no reaction. I encouraged my parents to do the same; Cara watched them, she looked at me, no sign from her that she was anything less than angelic.
Next morning this was repeated. And the next morning. And the next…
In the evenings, we would sit watching television and talking. Cara would be pacing around apparently purposelessly. I was getting increasingly frustrated with the problems we were all having living with this dog who I had bought to be the “best friend” of classic dog legend. I sat one evening and concentrated on her actions.
First she would approach my mother, who would stroke her. If my mother ignored her, a broad muzzle would work its way under her hand and push upwards, this would be repeated until stroking commenced. Should even this fail, drastic measures would be taken; shoving would get more forceful, move upwards under my mother’s elbow, and in the event of total failure, jumping up always got lots of talking and handling.
Was Cara satisfied with the attention she worked so strenuously to obtain? Not for a minute. Literally, not for the length of a single minute. She would work at getting attention for 10 minutes or more, but as soon as she got “what she wanted” she no longer wanted it. She would repeat this with my father, and would then stroll past me, with a sidelong glance, and repeat the process, which could continue for hours.
Why was she doing this? What was it she wanted?
Looking back now, twenty five years later, with my hard won knowledge it is all so clear. Cara was discovering what the boundaries and rules for behaviour were and setting a few of her own. Who initiates interactions and who decides when they end. Who gets included, and who is totally ignored. Cara was the trainer, my parents willing subjects and I was looking on, uninvited and excluded.
Even then I soon realised something of this, and asked my parents to ignore Cara so that she would have to get any attention from me.
“Don’t be jealous, she loves us” (did I imagine the “more than you”?) my mother would say when I broached the subject. My father would say little, but continued stroking whatever dog hair was presented to him.
I decided I needed help. I read books but I needed hands on help. I visited the local training class without her, to do a recce. Not yet admitting to owning a beast from the hellmouth, I asked about their classes, watched a row of well behaved pooches put through their paces, and finally asked how they dealt with “difficult” dogs.
“Just last week we had to ask a staffie owner to leave,” they told me promptly; “her dog was so disruptive it was unfair for all the others”. I made my escape as gracefully as I could, but with the taste of ashes in my mouth.
Finally I found a club which would take us; Cara was now nearly 7 months old. I found it increasingly difficult to walk her, as she would leap and grip her lead (now chain) just below my wrist, commencing a series of body swings which threw me from side to side. When she wasn’t hanging from her lead in imitation of an aerial circus act, defying gravity, she was pulling so hard that I had to change hands halfway round the route as my palms were so sore. She even began to insist that she walked against walls. This made it virtually impossible to cross roads, let other people pass between us and the wall, or change direction easily.
We arrived at our first week of class (pulling all the way), and Cara bodyswung in their hall. The trainer looked surprised, (thank you, gods! It is so easy to look stupid as your pet behaves angelically at the one time you need them not to,) and agreed that she actually DID have a bit of a problem with loose lead walking. They took her from me, and she bodyswung for them too. (Thank you again!). Right, we’ll get her sorted, they told me.
They got out the biggest choke chain I’d ever seen. This is the only way to sort her out I was told. They showed me how to use it so that it would give a quick, severe “snap” and release. It didn’t have any visible effect on Cara’s behaviour. I was shown how to put it up right behind her ears, because that was the most sensitive part of her neck so I would get most effect for each jerk.
I was even told not to let the other owners notice me shoving it up her neck as they didn’t want any cavaliers beheaded. Haha. So not amusing. I was told that it would work, if I only jerked often enough and HARD enough. We struggled home.
Next week we went again; this time I had to drag Cara the whole 2 miles to class. We struggled, we failed, I stifled tears of pain & sorrow that it had come to this, and of failure that I couldn’t do any better for us both.
The following week my mother came to watch, sitting on the stage. We came out afterwards, and she said how much she’d enjoyed spectating, and how she had cried with laughter watching our efforts. I’d been in tears too…
Well, Cara got trained. She learned to walk and enjoy it, using a headcollar, and eventually on a collar alone. I now know over 20 ways of teaching loose lead walking (more if I really put my mind to it) and not one involves chains, pain or tears.
I kept looking for better methods; I started using food treats, I used headcollars and harnesses, I went to the first Tellington Touch study days in the UK, I embraced clicker training, which is a method so-called “untrainable” breeds and rescue dogs thrive on. I threw away my choke chains and have long encouraged everyone else to throw theirs away. I have attended various courses held in the UK with Turid Rugaas who has spent her life watching and understanding dogs, and calls canine communication “calming signals”.
I looked at the dogs in my classes today, and all have improved within weeks of starting, several passed tests today, and at least one in each class would have been rejected by many traditional clubs. I don’t turn people away if their dogs have difficult behaviours, instead we have one to one sessions. I have half a dozen extremely aggressive dogs on my regulars list at any time and all are calming down and relaxing around other people and dogs. The owners of these dogs are interesting; on first meeting they are often tearful, very stressed and at the end of their tether. They use phrases like “I only want to be able to get my dog in the car”, or “I want to stop being too scared to take my dog out of the house”
After several sessions the goalposts have changed, and instead of “I can’t cope” I start to hear “when I introduce them to other dogs/people” and “I’m really enjoying time with my dog now”, and not only is their dog also happier, but best of all they are building a great relationship together.
I finally learned the information that I had wanted all those years ago*. I have lived with dogs with such severe behavioural problems that they would have probably (in 4 cases definitely) been put to sleep if I had not taken them on. Training has vastly improved in many ways, but there are still some trainers out there advocating force and pain.
Cara was finally put to sleep aged ten, following almost total kidney failure. We came to an understanding as she got older, I would be polite but firm, and she would listen sometimes, make me laugh often and trust me mostly. We struggled through and I think she had a good life, but I will always regret not being able to give her the knowledge she inspired me to acquire when she most needed it.
* … and if like me you want to know HOW transformations happen, that’s another post :)
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